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John 
Norton, 
M.D 



ALVIN CAMPBELL. 







NEW YORK: 

W. B. SMITH & CO.. PUBLISHERS. 
27 BOND STREET. 





W. B. SMITH & CO.'S 

“Tickle the public and make it (rrin — 

The more you tickle the more you ’ll win ? 

Teach the public — you ’ll never grow rich# 

But Uve like a beggar and die in a ditch.” 

A YOUNG DISCIPLE. (In press). Cloth, ^ 1 . 25 ^ A striking and powerful story ol 
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vein, with numerous ludicrous incidents humorously narrated. 




John Norton, M. D. 


BY 




ALVIN CAMPBELL. 




W. B. SMITH'^& CO., 
Bond Street. 




c:3 


Copyright, 1882 . 

By W. B. Smith & Co., New York. 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


CHAPTER I. 

It was a bright day in June, 18 — , that the citizens 

of W" first saw Dr. Norton’s shingle. The man 

himself had been visible to the inhabitants of the town 
only a few hours. 

Four years before the above unnamed date, John 
Norton and Alfred Amesbury were graduated at a 
New England college. That same autumn, Norton 
had commenced the study of medicine, and Ames- 
bury, the study of theology. 

Better friends than these two could not have been 
found among all those who followed the fortunes of 
that ancient filibuster of Trojan notoriety. They had 
disputed about theology and wrangled over Butler, 
Cousin, and Kant, but, at the end of their school-days, 
each of them found the other very dear to him. It is 
true they were both Pennsylvanians, a fact which 
might account for their attachment, as lonely Fresh- 
men, but scarcely for the friendship which existed 
between them as seniors. 

At the conclusion of his theological course, Ames- 
bury had accepted a call from the Presbyteriau churph 

( 3 ) 


4 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


of W , a town in Pennsylvania, on the beautiful 

Susquehanna, and had been here one year. 

Norton,, having taken his medical degree, and spent 
a year among the hospitals in London and Paris, now, 
at the urgent request of his friend, had come to prac- 
tise medicine in W . 

As he sat in his snug office on the main street of the 
pretentious little town, on this, the first day of his 
professional life, and beheld the glorious sun flinging 
its healing waves so gratuitously abroad, he could not 
suppress the thought that, after all, he, John Norton, 
with his diplomas and medical digests, might be some- 
what of an impertinence in such a world ; and it was 
not calculated to dispel this impression for him to 
remember, as he did, how vast the realm of the 
unknown in medicine is, as compared with the known ; 
the mystery that, in spite of all the centuries of inves- 
tigation, still enshrouds some of the most destructive 
maladies. 

But these somewhat morbid thoughts were abruptly 
interrupted by the appearance of a hatless and excited 
boy, who said, "Be you the new doctor?” 

" Yes ; what’s the matter ? ” 

"Why, dad got almost killed in the saw-mill, and 
the preacher who was going past as the men brought 
him home, told mam to send for you ! ” 

Taking up his hat and some surgical tools, Norton 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 5 

and the boy were soon at the house of the wounded 
man. 

The great chain by which the logs are drawn up in 
a steam saw-mill, getting loose and recoiling, it had 
struck the man with tremendous force, breaking the 
femur, and badly lacerating the flesh. 

With hopeful words and a skilful manipulation of 
splints and bandages (for surgery was Norton’s forte) 
his patient was soon as well cared for as if he had 
been an inmate of Guy’s Hospital. 

*"No strong food, Mrs. Kiefer. A little milk or 
broth, and, with skilful nursing, your husband will 
come through this all right. His system does not 
appear to have been depleted by rum, a fact which 
greatly enhances his chances of recovery.” 

Assuring the woman that he would call again in the 
evening to see how his patient rested. Dr Norton 
returned to his oflSce. Dubiety as to his right to a 
place in the world did not again invade his thoughts, 
for work, the great thaumaturgist, had dispelled his 
doubts. Had not he been of some use in the w^orld 
this very day? No mere impertinence, but a veritable 
helper of his kind, a mender of things, and hence, 
having as good a right to be reckoned an entity as the 
tinker or cobbler ; and, in this world where so many 
things get broken, this was surely right enough. 

Instinctively the old friends went forth in the even- 


G 


JOffiV" NORTON, M. D. 


ing to walk. Your healthy man always rejoices in the 
unmeasured and uncontaminated sweetness of the out- 
door world. Thought flows freer, the feelings are 

more exuberant. The scenery about W is tine at 

all times, comparable, doubtless, to much that is 
counted good in the landscape of Switzerland : this 
evening it was superb. The verdure-clad spurs of 
the Alleghenies, the fertile, clover-scented flelds, alive 
with the intermittent glow of innumerable fire-flies, 
the rippling Susquehanna, silver-plated here and there 
by the light of a half-grown moon, all made a picture 
of much beauty. 

But it was not to revel in such natural environments, 
magnificent .as they might be, that these friends went 
forth, but to ei)joy each other; for, after all, there is 
nothing in mere nature from which so much of joy and 
refreshment can be had as from a genuine human soul. 
The highest Alpine peak is but an ash-heap compared 
with a man. And O, the delight there is in contem- 
plating him, if tlie one beholding happens also to be 
verily a man. For men are discovered by the light 
that glows within the seeker’s soul, rather than by the 
lantern with which Diogenes sought to find his man. 
The finding of a continent were a small matter for 
congratulation to any navigator of life’s ocean, com- 
pared to the good fortune of him who has found a 
veritable man. Amesbury and Norton had each made 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


7 


such discovery, and hence had experienced endless 
delight in explorating their possessions. Norton had 
seen more of the world than Amesbury, and was of 
quicker, and perhaps deeper, insight than his friend. 
Amesbury was a line logician, and no hound ever fol- 
lowed a rabbit more unerringly than he followed the 
steps in a syllogism until he had bagged the conclu- 
sion. 

"Well, Dominie, they have not made you D.D. 
yet, have they ? ” 

" No, thanks to my good angel, I have escaped that 
infliction. The malady is like cancer, it very rarely 
attacks people until they are beyond their prime, when 
they have entered their second childhood, and are 
again 'pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.’” 

"They all seem to live through, and rather enjoy the 
infliction,” remarked Norton. 

" Yes, unfortunatelj^ ; indeed if you should hear all 
the reasons urged by some men why they should be 
dubbed, you would imagine their lives depended on the 
addition of those letters. Abraham could not have 
been more importunate when pleading for a doomed 
city, than are some of these in their wrestlings for a 
couple of D’s, and it matters little how insignificant 
the college that grants such doubtful honors may be. 
Moreover, the same much-abused D’s have been made 
articles of barter. Kaise five hundred dollars for one 


8 ' 


JOHN NORTON, 31. D. 


of these impecunious institutions, and the thing is 
done. It is really amusing to hear Talbot, who is con- 
nected with a lean college out West, describe the ins 
and outs of this business.” 

'"It might be amusing,” remarked IS'orton, "were it 
not for the pitiable manifestation of weakness on the 
part of those whom the world, for its own sake, should 
hold in highest respect.” 

" And who,” said Amesbury, "for the most part, and 
notwithstanding such peccadilloes, are worthy of res- 
pect. Such small vanity I judge to be far less destruc- 
tive to the man within than that insatiable greed for 
money which is fermenting in the minds of so many. 
Your average doctor, for example.” 

" Now you are at your old dodge of being personal 
in argument. I want you to know that I have devel- 
oped a fearful muscle in that London Boxing Club.'^ 

"Who cares for that ? You will find Yankee muscle as 
much supeiior to the British article as it was in 1812. 
But, bad as your trade is, I have sometimes wished I 
had chosen it and gone about mending the bodies of 
men, rather than the so often unsuccessful business of 
making them morally better. You fellows find a man 
all broken up, and with a few splints, bandages ^nd 
sutures, he comes out all right. His innate vitality, 
the vis-medicatrix that is in him, does the business, 
while here IVe been at work with some men a year, 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


9 


and my predecessors scores of years, without any good 
result becoming visible. There are no more signs of 
moral convalescence now than in the beginning. The 
wounds made by passions and appetites seem to grow 
'deeper and threaten to culminate in moral pyceniia. 
Sin has left no soul vis-medicatnx to fall back U})on. 
We can not' set’ a shattered veracity or 'tie’ a soul 
artery which has been severed by the dagger of lust, 
and say, 'my friend, lie still a few days, and you will 
be as good as ever.’ ” 

" It would be nearer the truth if you had said that 
your eviscerated theological. systems have left no room 
for any moral vis^medicatrix ; the souls of men have 
been brought well nigh unto asphyxia with your 
predestinarian logic and Calvinistic jugglery. Like 
some quacks in medicine, you give out that man 
is nearer dead than he is in order to bring life 
back by some deas ex machina arrangement. The 
only quality your system-makers seem to recognize as 
left in man, is inprtia. You have robbed the human 
will of the divine potentiality of true volition. You 
give notice to your hearers that they can do no good 
thing, and then scold them for not doing this very 
thing.” 

"But,” said Amesbury, "you do not suppose that, 
unhelped by God, man will originate any good 
thought or deed ? ” , i 


10 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


''Unhelped by God? What do you mean by such 
a phrase? Was there ever a human soul unhelped by 
him ? One that he did not help all that such a soul 
would permit? Reasons, motives for love and right 
action, God has revealed most plainly. But the love 
and the right action must emerge from the will, which 
is the true ego. It is amo, not amamus^ in morals, 
else there can no more be right or wrong in an action 
than you can ascribe moral meaning to the gyrations 
of a chip caught in an eddy of yonder brook. 

" But what makes the theological outlook most dis- 
couraging is the fact that you swear by St. Calvin 
and all the yet uncanonized worthies that there shall 
be no change in ecclesiastical formulas. The possi- 
bility of growth, which is one of the great evidences 
of life, is violently denied." 

"But,” said Amesbury, "the necessity of change 
implies error, imperfection, and if revealed of God, 
the Bible, and the legitimate deductions from it, must 
be entirely true, and hence, do not become a prey to 
the vandal spirit of improvements.” 

" I was not speaking of the Bible so much as the 
interpretations of it, which have been held more 
sacred than the Bible itself. What I hold is, that 
there should be growth in the understanding of the 
Bible. Divine as the book may be, it can not be 
truer or more divine than the book of nature, and yet 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


11 


what marvellous progress has been made during a 
hundred years in the right understanding of this book. 
But here we are like a couple of half-demented school- 
men, discussing abstractions when we should be enjoy- 
ing the evening and letting our suppers digest. And 
friend Amesbury, you have not only not attained unto 
the dignity of a Doctor of Divinity, but I find you 
unmarried as well, which, for a gentleman of your 
profession is somewhat remarkable. I thought theo- 
logians generally took out matrirnonal orders about as 
soon as they did the ecclesiastical.” 

” And a most reasonable thing it is, and a * consum- 
mation devoutly to be wished.’ ” 

"A good wife is worth more than a whole Cadmus 
outfit of empty letters.” 

" Why, there is one lady in my congregation, the 
divine sweetness of whose superb womanhood is 
more potent for God than all the rest of us combined. 
To all who come within the radius of her influence she 
is the incarnation of moral beauty. And not to love 
and delight in the God loved and delighted in by 
such a soul, would seem a double sin.” 

”Yes,” said Norton, for every such nature is a 
new revelation of divine things to the world. The 
truest and most helpful glimpses we get of the infinite 
heart, are not through any pen pictures, however tmly 
inspired such may be, but are radiations from some 


12 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


noble human life. For the best alphabet ever inven- 
ted can give truth but a dim expression compared 
■with the revealing power of a living soul. But per- 
haps,” continued Norton, "there were danger of so 
loving and delighting in such a human representation 
of divine excellence, as to forgot God’s claim, es- 
pecially if she were loving and physically as well as 
morally beautiful.” 

" Perhaps so,” sai/l Amesbury, somewhat sadly ; 
"and yet I cannot think that any true human love is 
unfriendly to the love of God. The tendency of all 
such aftection must be heavenward. You might as 
well say that the child’s progress in the spelling-book 
would be a hindrance to him in the mastery of the 
third reader.” 

"I see how it is ! No one talks like that until after 
he has been hit by the treacherous little bowman. 
How long has this embodiment of all that is lovely in 
woman had the first mortgage on you ? Has there been 
any article of agreement? When does she take pos- 
session ? ” 

"My only fear is that she does not want to take 
possession.” 

"Nonsense, mon ami! Twenty-seven years old — 
five feet ten — fine eyes — magnificent side-whiskers — 
* Hyperion locks — the front of Jove ’ — you have only 
to speak out like a little man, and get her to name the 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


13 


day that robs me of a friend. But here we are at my 
worthy landlord’s. Will you come in and smoke? ” 

" No, not to-night.” 

” Well, then, I will go and see what the vis-inedica- 
trix is doing for poor Kiefer.” 


CHAPTER II. 

Norton found his patient doing very well, and, in a 
brief space, was back again to his lodgings ; and, as 
he smoked, he thought of Ameshury, and wondered 
what kind of a person it might be who had laid such 
fast hold upon his friend’s susceptibilities. And then, 
as it often had within the past six months, there came 
before him an image of womanly grace. Should he 
ever again see the beautiful original whose likeness 
had been stamped so clearly upon his memory ? 

Half a year before, when Norton was crossing over 
from Dover to Calais, an officer of the boat came into 
the gentlemen’s saloon and asked if there was a surgeon 
present. A lady had been thrown, by a lurch of the 
vessel, against a door-jamb, and got her shoulder dis- 
located. After a moment’s pause to see if any one else 
would volunteer, Norton followed the man, and in a 
few seconds had rendered the needed assistance to his 


14 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


suffering fellow-voyager. The dignified old lad}' who 
had just been made comfortable, introduced herself as 
Miss Randolph, from the United States, and, turning 
to a star-eyed girl with a face of Grecian outline and 
mouth of great sensitiveness and beauty, she said, 
"Dr. Norton, this is my niece, Mary Randolph.” 
Then, of course, it was in order to withdraw from the 
narrow confines of the lady’s state-room, which Norton 
did, accepting thanks, but refusing the proffered fee 
on the grounds that he too was an American. 

This was all, except a hat-lifting on the pier ; and 
yet there had been scarcely a day that this girl was 
not more or less in Norton’s thoughts. Should they 
ever meet again ? It was stupid not to have secured 
the address even at the risk of being thought pre- 
sumptuous. What navigator, having sighted a lovely 
island, but would at once mark its latitude and lonH- 
tude, so that he might come again and revel in its 
beauty, and perhaps take possession of it. 

Imagine Dr. Norton’s surprise when, one day, he 
met at Mr. Kiefer’s this very person who had been so 
often in his thoughts — his fair fellow-traveller on the 
British Channel. A basket was in her hand, and it 
was evident she had not come as a gossip, but as a 
Good Samaritan to this afflicted household. 

As a true sister of charity had this vision of beauty 
appeared in this poor man’s dwelling. A gracious 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


15 


smile of recognition and the touch of a little hand sent 
a pulsation of gladness through the soul of this man, 
as the touch of other hands and the smiles of other lips 
had never done. 

Was the aunt well? 

Quite well, and will be glad to see and again thank 
Dr. Norton for his kindness.” 

In the evening Norton told Amesbury that he had 
found an acquaintance, and narrated the incident on the 
vessel, and the meeting and recognition at Mrs. Kiefer’s. 

*'One is sure to meet Miss Randolph where suffering 
or need is. I once thought that such work was done 
only by disappointed spinsters and women upon whose 
lives some great blight had fallen, but here is one of 
the brightest and most glad of earth’s children delighting 
in it.” 

”They are God’s angels, sent of Him, no matter 
w'hether they were ordained to this heavenly work on 
Mount Sinai or Calvary,” said Norton. 

”But I must confess,” said Amesbury, ^Hhat I like 
the Calvary-inspired better than the Siuai-compelled 
angels.” 

"In the case under consideration, I agree with you 
entirely,” rejoined Norton. 

" If you are not too busy, we will call at Mr. Ran- 
dolph’s to-morrow evening.” 

"Don’t ever run the risk of being thought sarcastic 


16 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


or mercilessly ironical by asking a doctor, with one 
sick man on his list, if he has 'time’ for anything. 
The trouble is, I have more th^ie than patients.” 

Norton and his friend were received with much cor- 
diality by the Randolph ladies, — Mr. Randolph, who 
was a coal operator, being away from home ; indeed, 

that gentleman spent most of his time at S , 

where his financial interests were located. 

The aunt trusted that Dr. Norton would never have 

cause to regret that he had settled in W . She 

was sure that the medical profession furnished many 
opportunities for doing good, and for sympathizing 
with distressed people. 

"And is it true,” said the niece, "that sympathy 
wfith the sufferings of his patients unfits the physician 
for success? Unmans him, as some say? Must he 
really learn to be cold and unfeeling, before he can do 
his best as a healer of men ? ” 

" Such has been a somewhat widely-received opin- 
ion,” said Norton; "but it seems to me that the very 
reverse of it must be true, and that the more com- 
pletely the would-be healer can enter into and identify 
himself with those who are to be healed, the more 
possibility there is of healing. Many physically mor- 
bid conditions have psychological causes, others have 
mental ramifications, and such cases can only be under- 
stood by the deepest intuition j — and how shall such 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


17 


insight be gained better than by true sympathy? 
Even in surgery, it is the kind, magnetic touch of 
the operator that infuses the courage with which to 
bear and the faith with which to be healed. One 
human will fortifies another. There is more real heal- 
ing done by means of human wills, than by the best 
nostrums in materia medica,^^ 

” Whether such eflicacy for physical healing resides 
in the human will, or not; it certainly is the place in 
man where soul healing commences,” said Aniesbury. 

The will is the one fort that did not make an uncon- 
ditional surrender in the first great invasion by the 
devil.” 

"According to some theologians,” remarked Mary 
Randolph, " the guns of this fortification were all 
spiked.” 

"Oh, yes; but a more careful examination of the 
battle-field has revealed the fact that they were only 
dismounted ; and under the direction of the Great Cap- 
tain, they may be got into position again, and this 
moral Gibraltar be made more impregnable than in 
the Adamic campaign.” 

"1 hope, Mr. Amesbury, you have not been giving 
your friend any biographical sketches of our people 

here in W , for that, you know, would rob him 

of the joy of first discovery,” said Mary Randolph. 

"No, indeed; he has been as reticent on this most 
interesting subject as the Delphian oracle.” 


18 


JOHN NORTON M. D, 


” My conscious inability to perform adequately the 
part of a Plutarch for our worthy citizens, would haye 
been sufficient to deter me had there been no other 
reasons. The Boswell idea of biography — minus the 
toadyism — is the one that would suit me best. It 
must be a task of love. I shall never begin until I 
have found a Johnson.” 

”1,” said Norton, "should prefer, in such a case, 
that the subject should be a Miss Johnson.” 

" Then, Miss Randolph,” said Amesbury, " there is 
another reason why any such biographical infliction, as 
you feared I had been perpetrating on my friend, 
should not be attempted. It can never be a success. 
No two persons ever find the same man to be the same. 
Men are like restaurants : we get what we ask for, — 
what our moral appetite demands. In the presence of 
one man or woman, all that is best and most admirable 
in one is brought to the front, and for the time being 
becomes dominant. In the society of another kind of 
man he is vulgar, perhaps carnal. My friend will 
doubtless discover eldorados of character here in 
W quite unsuspected by me.” 

"I hope he will find his Miss Johnson, as I am curi- 
ous to see what kind of a Boswell he will make,” 
remarked Mary Randolph. 

"Oh, I suspect he has already found her, and got 
several chapters written,” said the elderly lady, who 


JOHN NORTON, 3L D, 


19 


had been greatly enjoying the discussion of the young 
people, and who, when the gentlemen were about to 
go, remarked that if it were not for the pain implied 
in the thought, she would wish Dr. Norton a very large 
practice. can, at least, wish you a most abundant 
success in curing those you do have.” 

" Thanks for your kindness. I trust that I shall not 
altogether disa[)point the hopes which my friends have 
been rash enough to place in me. The success of a 
physician has not quite the same gloomy outlook as 
the success of an undertaker.” 


CHAPTER III. 

A DOZEN months have brought Dr. Norton more 
work than in his most sanguine moments he had ex- 
pected in so brief a space. 

What could a year bring to Mary Randolph, but 
more beauty of all kinds, — a riper and more glorious 
womanhood, with many opportunities for helpful, lov- 
insr acts? Aloiif? with much that had been cheering 
and hopeful, the last few days of the year had brought 
to Amesbury a complication in church work which was 
somewhat perplexing. And on entering his friend's 
study one day, at this period, Norton, who was as 


20 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


quickly conscious of mental impediments in others as 
he was of physically morbid conditions, exclaimed : 

” What is wrong, Dominie? Is it finance, malaria, 
or love? Here, take a cigar, and cheer up.” 

" Did you meet a man as you came in ? ” remarked 
Amesbury, as he lighted the cigar. 

"I met Mr. Boyd.” 

" Well, he is likely to give me no end of trouble.” 

"That seems strange. I thought Mr. Boyd was 
one of the most earnest Workers for the right in 
W .” 

" And so he is, and I have learned to love him not a 
little. The case stands thus : the next Sabbath will be 
our communion, and Mr. Boyd wishes to become a 
member of the church. But the trouble is, he does 
not believe there is any hell. I can not doubt that he 
is a truly Christian man. His life is very much higher 
and purer than the average church member. In short, 
if Mr. Boyd had said nothing about the question of 
future punishment, he would have been regarded by 
every member of the session as a fine example of a 
devoted, God-loving man.” 

"And why should that fact cause anyone to think 
differently ? ” remarked Norton. " Must a man believe 
in hell before he can believe in heaven, and love and 
serve the God who dwells there ? Is not love better 
than fear, — a more mighty, soul-uplifting, sin-expeD 


JOim NORTON, M. D. 


21 


ling element in God’s moral universe than the reddest 
hell conceivable ? And why go back to fear when we 
can have love — to the bow and arrow of the savage, 
when we can have the Winchester rifle with which to 
slay evil ? ” 

" There can be no doubt about the superiority of lovef 
as a moral influence,” said Amesbury. ”But the fact 
that it is so high and glorious is what necessitates 
lower forces in the moral world. Multitudes are on so 
low a moral plane that only fear can touch them. 
There is a stone age in the history of some souls, as 
well as in the history of the human race, and the flint- 
headed arrow of fear is the only weapon available with 
such moral savages. In human governments love of 
right is a much higher, and in itself stronger, motive 
than fear of penalty, and with many it is the only 
motive that is felt. Such persons would do right if there 
were no penalties ; but there are those with whom this 
higher consideration has no influence; hence the neces- 
sity of prisons and gallowses.” 

” Yes, for the good of human society such wretches 
must be put away for much the same reason that rab- 
id dogs are disposed of, the thought of reformation 
being almost entirely excluded. But God wants pos- 
itive results. Love, character, manhood are what he 
is seeking to develop. And the only conceivable 
reason why a hell should have a place in God’s moral 


22 


JOHN NORTON M. D. 


world, is that in some way it Hms power to develop 
manhood. The question is, therefore, does the thought 
of hell ever, or can it ever, in even the lowest sense, 
fertilize the roots of love, of that purity of heart, with- 
out which no man can see God.” 

" If it does not fertilize the celestial growth of which 
you have been speaking, perhaps hell is the moral 
plough by which the stubborn heart-sod is broken, so 
that the seeds of love may find lodgment therein, and 
grow ever more toward higher fruitfulness. Gun- 
powder never fashioned a block of granite into human 
shape and manly beauty, and yet that same rude ex- 
plosive compound may have been of use in breaking 
loose the stone in the quarry and giving it to the 
sculptor. So the thought of hell may do some rough 
work preparatory to the advent of the all-beautifying 
sculptor. Love” 

"The objection to all you say is that no such a thing 
does happen. What bad man was ever made good by 
condemnation — by punishment threatened or actual ? 
What person ever won another’s love by any other 
means than love ? Not by threats and condemnation 
was ever a wrong-doer made sorry and loving, but by 
the magnetic potency of entire forgiveness. That 
theology which puts hell in the foreground is. impotent 
to help men, because it robs Christ of his highest 
glory and divinest power with sinners. When you 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


23 


say to a man, 'Kepent and you shall be pardoned,’ you 
snatch from the poor devil the very motive that ren- 
ders repentance possible, namely, the assurance that 
he has been pardoned. It is as if you should find a 
man in a desert place, famished and unable to rise, 
and you should say, * Get up, sir, and come with me, 
and you shall have food and be made strong ; if you 
don’t do this you will die !’ To be sure he will die. 
How can he arise? What he needs is nourishment 
just here where he lies, and by and by he will be able 
to go hence. He is the true, theological Samaritan 
who brings to men the Christ-broken bread of uncon- 
ditional forgiveness. Nothing short of this can make 
true sorrow and love possible. But whether we can 
agree upon all these points or not, it does seem most 
absurd to torment one’s self about a man like Boyd, 
who evidently has got out of the stone age and the sod- 
breaking period, and rejoices in love and loving 
deeds.” 

That is what I have been thinking,” said Ames- 
bury, "and when we voted just before you came, on 
the question whether Mr. Boyd should be received or 
not, it was found to be a tie. And I, as moderator, 
cast the deciding vote for Mr. Boyd’s reception. I 
voted thus not because I believe as he does about this 
one dogma, but because I think he is a Christian man. 
Were he destitute of love and building hopes of 


24 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


heaven on his non-belief in hell, I should have rejected 
him. Nevertheless, I know that my action will make 
trouble. I saw as much in the cold, reproving glance 
of Elder Hornblende. We shall doubtless hear of this 
at the next meeting of the Presbytery.” 

Dr. Norton and Mary Randolph had met frequently 
during the year, and what at first may have been only 
admiration had, in spite of himself, developed into an 
all-pervading love. I say in spite of because it 

had become clear to his mind that Mary Randolph was 
the woman whom his friend loved. Should he speak 
to her and have his destiny settled? That seemed the 
orthodox way, as men do in novels, but he loved 
Amesbury also. When ho thought how noble his 
friend was, and as nearly worthy of Mar}’ Randolph’s 
love as any man living ; and what a real vestal virgin 
to one like him she would be ; what fitness she had for 
helping in the work of souldiealing, he hesitated. 
Would it not be downright impiety and sacrilege to 
think of hindering such a consummalion ? No, he 
must wait and walk carefully, for, verily, the ground 
beneath his feet might be holy ground. I know that 
the critic will say that our medical friend is a booby, 
and when one really loves a beautiful woman he will 
brook no delay, submit to no hindrances, but must 
take possession of the loved one, should he have in so 
doing to thi’ottle a twin brother. Friend critic, thou 


JOHN NOHTON, M. D. 


25 


art thinking of quite another thing than love. Thou 
hast mistaken the hot, destroying lava stream of pas- 
sion for the deep, cool, fertilizing river of love. H;id 
Norton thought that he was loved by Mary Randolph 
he would have acted quite difierently. For, as Jean 
Paul says, "A friend may well sacritice to a friend a 
loved one, but can not surrender one who loves him.” 

Norton was no egotist, and therefore did not take 
for granted that all women, this one included, must be 
in love with him. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Aftek Norton’s advent, W boasted of three phy- 

sicians. Dr. Duncan, a grand old-school gentleman with 
large heart, and medical skill above the average. His 
practice had made him rich, and his good-nature, which 
is another name for good digestion, had made him fat. 
Duncan was incapable of a small jealousy, but he was 
most fiercely denunciatory of everything that savored 
of quackery. I am almost afraid that, kind-hearted 
as was this son of ^sculapius, he would sooner 
see a patient die in a regular orthodox manner, than 
have him resuscitated by any irregular process. But 
never in his long practice had he, for money or entreaty, 


26 JOHN NORTON, M, D, 

taken a poor little defenceless life to save others from 
shame. 

From the first, Norton had been well received by 
Dr. Duncan, and soon they became very good friends 
indeed ; the elderly gentleman taking a kind of fath- 
erly pride in this promising young man of science. 

Dr. Drake, the other medical gentleman in W , 

was a lean, dark, austere man, with what always seemed 
to Norton a sinister expression. 

Duncan asked his young friend one day, if he had 
met Dr. Drake in consultation, and how he had been 
treated by him. 

”He has refused to consult with me,” replied Nor- 
ton, ''and he never sees me that he does not look as if 
he would like to holdapos^ mortem examination then 
and there.” 

” I should rather he would hold a post than an ante 
mortem examination, if I were to be the subject,” said 
Duncan, and a mirthful ripple agitated his rotund pei- 
son. 

"Four or five of his patients have employed me, with- 
out, of course, the least encouragement to do so on my 
part,” said Norton. 

" Such things cannot be helped,” remarked Duncan, 
" but Drake will never forgive you for it, and you must 
take care to keep as far as possible from the hip of this 
medical Shy lock.” 


JOHN NORTON, M, D, 


27 


What I most dislike in Drake,” continued Duncan, 
is his intimacy with that infernal old scoundrel and 
quack, Darman, who lives, as you perhaps know, a few 
miles from here. The wretch has murdered more inno- 
cents than the tyrant Herod, and so far nothing has 
been proved against him. Oh, were he to get sick 
and I be called, I’d salivate him until he became as 
toothless as his victims.” 

During an evening walk, Amesbury told Norton 
that he was going to Presbytery the next day. 

"How long will you be gone?” 

" About three days. The business could ])e all done 
in one day, were it not for three or four men with 
whom the speech-making malady has become chronic. 
The bore would be intolerable, were it not for the 
thought that these logomachists mean well with their 
verbiage.” 

"They must think,” said Norton, "that all church 
machinery is run by wind.” 

"Yes, the delusion has got away with them that ar- 
ticulate speech is the one devil-killing invention on 
earth, which, alas ! it by no means is. Samson killed a 
considerable number of the Philistines with the maxil- 
lary of an ass, but hardly any moral devil ever gets 
its death-blow by the swing of human maxillary, even 
were it the resonant bone of a veritable maker and 
patentee of revivals, unless it were indirectly by down- 


28 


'JOHN NORTON M. D. 


right ennui, I am learning to put large discount on 
all, even the most eloquent talk, unless it has real kin- 
ship with deeds. All such is smoke, that never be- 
comes flame, which tends only to deeper obscurity, 
and is not in the least hurtful to devils, or helpful to 
men.” 

" I thought that our gallinaceous kinsfolk were the 
only creatures that did not enjoy such ecclesiastical 
convocations,” said Norton. "It is certainly Blue- 
Monday with you, Amesbury : a change will do you 
good. Fa7e/” 

As he met with the dificrent members of the Pres- 
bytery of the next day, and felt the warm hand- 

clasps, and heard the cordial words of greeting by 
one and another, Amesbury was conscious of a twinge 
of self-reproach because of his impatient words of the 
evening before. After all, were not these the very 
men that this money-crazed world could least afford to 
lose. For, aside from anything they might say in the 
pulpit or out of it, wise or otherwise, were not the 
self-sacrificing lives and illy remunerated perseverance 
of these men in the cause of religion, a standing pro- 
test against selfishness. There was doubtless, here and 
there, a windy fellow with good-looks and fluent utter- 
ance whose pay for pulpit work was more than his 
meagre talents would have demanded elsewhere : but 
with the majority it was otherwise. The business of 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


29 


Presbytery had got disposed of with more than ordi- 
nary dispatch, and Ainesbury began to congratulate 
himself that Elder Hornblende had concluded not to 
move in the Boyd case ; but such congratulations were 
premature, for just then a clergyman arose and said 

there was an elder from the church of W in the 

house who wished to present a complaint, and moved 
that he be heard. 

The substance of the complaint was that part of the 
session of the church had received into church mem- 
bership a man who did not believe in a hell ; and, as 
we had been exhorted to hold fast the form of sound 
words, the persons whose names were affixed deemed 
themselves bound not to suffer so dangerous an error 
to go on unchecked. 

This was enf)ugh to bring to the front all the self- 
constituted custodians of orthodoxy, and, in the discus- 
sion that followed, some of the weakest phases in the 
clerical character became painfully apparent. 

The Eev. Mr. Feldspar, pastor of the church at 

K , the most wealthy congregation in the whole 

Presbytery, asked what the pastor of the church at 

W could mean by such an unprecedented act. 

If such things should be permitted to go on unrebuked 
by the strong hand of ecclesiastical authority, the 
noble Calvin and dauntless Knox would not be able to 
rest peacefully in their graves. There were foes 


30 


JOHN NORTON, M, B, 


enough without the camp of Israel ; it would not do to 
suffer them to enter the citadel and betray it to the 
enemy. " The man Boyd must be cast out, and if his 
pastor sympathizes with him in this heresy, and I am 
persuaded he does, he should be called to give an 
account of his stewardship.” 

Much else was said in acquiescence with the above. 
Had not the Pope spoken (for every Presbytery has its 
Pope) ? And were they not all bound to give heed to 
such ex-cathedra utterance ? 

No, all were not bound to give heed. All were not 
believers in Popes. 

The Rev. Thomas Axton^ who seldom took part in 
the Prcsbyterial babblement, had some remarks to make 
on this subject, which were quite different from any- 
thing littered by Feldspar and Co. Axton was in the 
iron-gray period of life, modest almost to the point of 
diffidence, much loved by those who knew him best, 
but one with whom a stranger did not quickly get on 
terms of intimacy. 

Mr. Axton said that much of the talk which they 
had just heard seemed puerile. He knew that Mr. 
Amesbury held to all the doctrines of the church as 
much as any man who loved humanity more than 
mere dogmas could or ought to hold to them, and as 
to the reception of Mr. Boyd, he would have done the 
same himself, for he had just been informed by the very 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


31 


gentleman who had presented the complaint that the 
religious character of this Mr. Boyd was above re- 
proach, He was not simply negatively moral, but a 
positively good, God-serving man, and it was to be 
remembered that this was the reluctant testimon^^ of 
one not favorably disposed toward Mr. Boyd. "As 
ministers, we have all doubtless received men into the 
church who overreach, exaggerate, utter angry words, 
but we do not talk of having them turned out of the 
church or of disciplining their pastors. Nay, there 
are pastoj-s themselves who have been guilty of theft ; 
for taking the thoughts of other men and using them 
as one’s own is downright petty larceny, and no move- 
ment is made towards discipline. But here we stand 
with bitter words and threaten to unchurch a man 
whose worst fault is one of opinion. And this hue 
and cry about heresy is very finical. The clerical 
bosom seems to have become the constant dwelling- 
place of fear. The pillar of the temple of orthodoxy 
seems ever more in danger of being pulled down by 
this or that imaginary giant. And this cry of 'wolf’ 
has not only a finical aspect in the world’s eye, but an 
unbelieving aspect as well. For is any truth of 
Almighty God such a poor, weak, vagrant thing that 
it needs to be defended and kept alive by human dis- 
cipline? Depend upon it, anything thus weak and 
morally valetudinarian must be a lie, or at best a half- 


32 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


truth, and should get ready to vanish, even though it 
has been as sacred and well-worn as the much- 
kissed toe of St. Peter at Kome.” 

At the conclusion of this speech, the question was 
called for, and, after it had been decided that Mr. 
Boyd should be removed from ^he membership of the 

church at W , Amesbury said that all the eloquent 

discussion of the matter under consideration had failed 
to throw any new light on the question, and hence had 
failed to change his views. He could not allow any 
man's conscience, nor the conscience of the whole 
church, to usurp the right of individual judgment. 
He had done what seemed to be right, and as to put- 
ting Mr. Boyd out of the church because of an error 
of judgment, he must say plainly that he never should 
do that. The man needed the church, and the church 
needed the man. The relation had been ordered of 
Heaven, and what '' God hath joined together, let no 
man put asunder.” Such a thing would be worse than 
expelling a man from a hospital because he was like to 
lose an arm. Outside, and uneared for, might not 
the man lose his very life? 

These remarks of Amesbury would have elicited fur- 
ther discussion had not the Rev. Mr. Axton moved an 
adjournment, on the ground that if they did not go 
then they would miss the train -and have to remain 
another day. With some mutterings about contumacy, 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 33 

the members hastened in search of satchels and umbrel- 
las. 

On their way home, Amesbliry asked a lawyer, with 
whom he happened to be seated, — and who was an 
elder in Mr. Feldspar’s church, — how it was that a. 
man with such marked ability as Mr. Axtou had not 
been called to a larger field ? 

” Oh, Mr. Axton is too modest ; lacks brass, and his 
views are too advanced to be popular. To be fifty 
years in advance of one’s time, is worse than to be 
fifiy years behind. In £he last case, a man will 
have plenty of company and sympathy ; in the first 
case, he has neither company nor sympathy. I have 
heard,” continued the legal gentleman, "that Axton is 
at work on a book, the title of which is to be ' Sacred 
Nonentities.’” 

" Indeed ! ” said Amesbury ; " any book by him will 
be well worth reading. This is my station, — good- 
day, sir.” 


CHAPTER V* * 

i 

Amesbury heard from Norton, in whose office he 
stopped as he went from the depot, that they were 
invited to Dr. Duncan’s that evening. " And,” said 
Norton, " I have a case that needs particular attention, 


34 JOHN NORTON, M. D. 

and fear I shall be denied part of my anticipated pleas- 
ure.” 

Dr. Norton made no further remark about this case 
to his friend. No well-bred doctor does talk, even to 
his wife, about his sick folks ; nevertheless, this patient 
had been much in his thoughts since he had seen her a 
few hours before. 

That morning, as he was about to drive away on his 
round of calls, Norton had been summoned in haste to 
see Christina Holstein. The young lady was the only 

daughter of one of the wealthy families in W , 

and was much admired for her beauty, although her 
appearance was more correctly described by the word 
jpreity than by the word beautiful. Ever since Norton 
had known anything about the family, the young lady 
had been receiving the attentions of Robert Ramsey, 
a medical student, who was employed as clerk in Dr. 
Drake’s drug store. The girl having fallen suddenly 
and alarmingly ill, they had sent for Norton, — Drake, 
who was their family physician, not being at home. 

The Doctor was not lon^ in ascertaining what was 
wrong with his patient. He also found, by dint of 
question and the examination of the contents of some 
vials in the room, that a persistent, though ineffectual, 
effort had been made to elude shame by the destruc- 
tion of life. 

When her mother had gone out of the room for a 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


35 


few minutes, the young woman acknowledged all, and 
begged Dr. Norton to rescue her from the coming 
horror. She would sooner die than face the shame ! 

Norton told her very kindly, but decidedly, that 
what she demanded was impossible, and that she must 
stop taking drugs. He would give her something to 
counteract the bad effects of what she had been taking. 
Such work was murder, and perhaps suicide ! 

When his patient was more quiet, he left, telling 
Mrs. Holstein, whom he met in the hall, that he would 
come again in the evening, at which time he intended 
to inform the mother entirely in regard to his patient. 

But this very evening, before the party supper 
could be eaten or the joy of being near Mary Ran- 
dolph realized, Norton was summoned four miles into 
the country, from which place a return was impossible 
before midnight. 

The following morning, after breakfast and a brief 
glance at the paper, Norton went to see Christina 
Holstein. 

Instead of finding his patient better, as he had ex- 
pected, he perceived that an accursed sacrilegious 
crime had been accomplished. In answer to his rapid 
questions, Mrs. Holstein said that in the night Chris- 
tina got so much worse that they had sent for Dr. 
Drake, who said when he came that it Avas too late, 
and that he would have nothing to do with the case. 


36 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 

"But so7ne wretch has had to do with the case,” said 
Norton, " and a dou])le murder will be the result of 
his infernal work.” For he saw that the young woman 
could live only an hour or so, having already passed 
into a comatose condition. Mrs. Holstein denied all 
knowledge of anything out of the way in the matter, 
but Norton thought he could read guilt in the cold, 
proud face of this woman, who, to save the family 
name, could see her child killed. 

" Poor young thing ! ” thought Norton ; " how could 
it be well with her ? Begirt as her short life had been 
by such untoward influences, — selfish lust on the part 
of her lover, — murderous pride on the part of her 
mother ? ” 

In anger Norton left the house, determined to have • 
the outrageous business investigated ; but in less than 
five hours from this time he found himself under 
arrest for two great crimes. The charge had been 
made by Mr. Holstein on the testimony of Dr. Drake, 
who had made a j^ost-mortem examination, and before 
dark, notwithstanding Amesbury’s strenuous effort to 
get the bail matter arranged, John Norton, M. D., 
was an inmate of the county jail. 

In the evening Amesbury and Dr. Duncan came to 

see him, W being only a few miles from the county 

town. The bail had been fixed at fifty thousand dol- 
lal’s, and Amesbury, who by the death of an aunt had 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


37 


recently become heir to seventy-five thousand dollars, 
•wished to assume the whole responsibility ; but Dr. 
Duncan would not be denied this opportunity ot* ex- 
pressing his confidence in the integrity of his young 
medical friend. 

^*This is devilish awkward business,” said the old 
doctor, when he had been made as comfortable as Nor- 
ton’s present lodgings would admit of. 

” Mrs. Holstein has sworn that you were the only 
doctor called until Drake was brought, and Drake has 
testified as to the condition in which he found the 
patient. By making you the victim, Mrs. Holstein 
will escape all danger of implication in the crime, and 
get much sympathy as a deeply-injured woman. The 
real criminals in this business are Kamsey, Darman, 
and Mrs. Holstein. Drake happened on the scene 
just in time to help them out and avenge all his old 
scores.” 

- "When is the next session of court?” inquired 
Amesbury. 

" Six weeks from to-day,” replied Dr. Duncan ; 
**and Holstein has secured Colonel Wing to assist the 
District Attorney. Wing is the most dreaded crimi- 
nal lawyer in all this country. Have you decided who 
will conduct your case ? ” 

"No; will you suggest a person? I have no ac- 


38 


JOHN NORTON^ M. D. 


quaintance with the legal talent of the county. Indeed, 
I need a detective more than a lavvyer.” 

"We must secure Squire Flint, who is the keenest 
man at the bar, and is a sort of natural detective. 
He will find a clue if there is any. I shall drive over 
here to-morrow at 10 a. m. You will then be ' out of 
limbo.’ We will see Flint, and secure him.” 

Amesbury insisted upon passing the night with his 
friend, but Norton utterly refused to permit it. 

” There is hardly enough air here for one man, and 
no way to secure a draft through the beastly place. 
I won’t have you breathing up my oxygen. I shall 
get on grandly. Good-night I ” 


CHAPTER VI. 

The party at Dr. Duncan’s had proved a social suc- 
cess. Indeed, since Agues Duncan was old enough to 
give direction to her father’s household, the hospitality 
of the Duncan home had been charming. For, in 
addition to a faultless taste in all matter of domestic 
detail. Miss Duncan was a social genius. One could 
scarcely imagine a company of persons so incongruous 
and illy assorted that she could not organize them into 
a social cosmos. Whatever latent capacity of harmony 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


39 


and social beauty might exist, she had the intuition to 
perceive and the magnetic power to evoke. 

A truly great thing has ])een done, — a real, creative 
miracle performed, when a Shakespeare or a George 
Eliot, out of the raw material of their own imagina- 
tion, create men and women and make them act nobly 
in some ideal world for a brief space ; but I call her a 
more benign genius who can take the stubborn ele- 
ments of village society and, in spite of the petty jeal- 
ousies, chronic feuds, and natural incongruities, send 
them home at the end of four hours better pleased with 
each other, having found in their little world many 
qualities worthy of respect, helpful, neighborly possi- 
bilities, before quite unsuspected. 

Agnes Duncan did not need a beautiful exterior to 
make her a charming woman. The difference between 
her and Mary Kandolph is best seen in the way each 
sought to accomplish the same thing, — the reclaiming 
of a wayward sister, — a work which both of these 
noble women recognized as their work, and the work of 
every true sister of women. 

Miss Randolph would begin by telling of Christ, and 
the recuperative power that dwells alone in Him. 

Agnes Du ! lean would work day and night to get the 
unfortunate one again recognized by society ; and thus, 
by the influence of all that is best in social life, lead 
back to God. 


40 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


Who shall say which is the better way? 

Amesbury had determined that at the very first 
opportunity he would ask Mary Randolph to become 
his wife. He knew that Miss Randolph regarded him 
with favor, but whether it was a natural sympathy for 
one trying to advance the cause in which she was so 
much interested, or a more personal sentiment, he did 
not know. So, on the way home from the party, he 
gave verbal expression to his love, and spoke of all the 
sweet thoughts of an ideal blessedness that had been 
gathering for so many months around the hope of win- 
ning her love. 

* " Dear friend, the love of a true man is somethins: to 
be proud of all one’s life, but I can give you only 
friendship. Let us be friends and helpers, as before.” 
i And Amesbury, who knew how entirely devoid this^ 
woman at his side was of all shallow coquetry, felt thatr 
whatever his feelings might continue to be toward her, 
that she could never be to him more than a friend. 
Should he, because he could not be a Croesus and have 
all he coveted of the golden currency of love, be a churl, 
and fling from him the silver pieces of this noble wo- 
man’s friendship ? Wo / They should be friends. If the 
magnetic, sacred, betrothal kiss could not be his, he 
would not deny himself one friendly kiss of the fair 
hand that was extended to him when they said good- 
night. 


JdIN NORTON, M. D, 


41 


ISlr. Boyd, who had in some way heard of the discus- 
sion of his case in Presbytery, and of the possibly 
unpleasant results tjiat might come of it to his pastor, 
came one day and told Amesbury that he would go 
away fr6m'W— — . He had an offer of a situation, 
and should have gone before had it not been for his 
pleasant church relations. 

"By no means, friend, unless it is greatly to your 
advantage to go,” said Amesbury. "How should we 
get on w ithout you ? W e have no one that could keep 
your Sabbath School class together, and Shaefer and 
Sidell would gravitate back to the wdiiskey dens if you 
should let go of them at this time.” 

"You put far too high a value upon my poor efforts, 
Mr. Amesbury. Indeed, if I have done any good, you 
may thank Miss Randolph for it. It was she that 
sliow’ed me the Christ. I shall never forget the day she ' 
came to read the Bible to me w hen I was getting over 
tlie fever two years ago. What she said about Christ 
forgiving and loving touched me, and in her prayer 
Christ seemed so real to her, and her talk with him so 
natural, that I looked around expecting to see the 
Saviour in the room.” 

"Yes, she is an angel,” said Amesbury, "but you 
must promise me not to make arrangement to leave 
here without letting me know.” 

" I will do that, but you shall never suffer in any 
'way on my account.” 


42 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Dr. Duncan was punctual at ten o’clock the next 
morning, and Norton having been released on bail 
half an hour before, they immediately went in search of 
lawyer Flint, who said, when he had heard it, that the 
case looked very bad. 

” Do you know the servant girl at Mr. Holstein’s? 
Perhaps she might throw some light upon the matter.” 

"Yes,” said Norton, "her name is Susan Kiefer, a 

daughter of my first patient at W , and I believe 

her to be a good, truthful girl. Shall I ask her to 
come over and see you ? ” 

"Do so, by all means ; for, unless we can get a clue 
to this business, your chance of escaping the peniten- 
tiary seems very small indeed. The offence for which 
you are to be put on trial is a growing evil, and hith- 
erto the offenders have escaped, and the court is bound 
to make an example of the first one against whom any 
proof shall be brought.” 

All this, of course, did not sound very cheering to 
Norton ; but whatever might be the issue of this busi- 
ness, he had determined to go about his work as was 
the behest of a man and a Christian. 

Dr. Duncan insisted that his young friend should 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


43 


dine with him that day, and as he saw him at the 
piano with Agnes, giving voice to a gay college song, 
he said to himself, '' There is good stufi‘ in that hoy. 
It’s a devilish shame that the life of such a fine fellow 
should be blighted. I never saw a man of his years 
handle a surgeon’s knife as he can.” 

Of course the whole matter — the death of poor 
Christina Holstein and Dr. Norton’s arrest — had re- 
ceived the widest publicity. It had been a perfect 
godsend to newspaper men and gossips. In only two 
places however, where- he had sick people, did Norton 
notice any difference. In these the gentlemen paid 
him, and said he need not come again ; and, as in both 
cagfes the patients were nearly well, he did not mind 
it. Indeed he respected the men the more. For, on 
the supposition of his guilt, it was the duty of every 
true man to drop him. 

The first time he met Mary Eandolph, Norton was 
embarrassed in spite of himself. Wbat did this woman, 
whose opinion was more to him than the rest of the 
wmrld, think of him? Could she believe him guilty? 
The thought that perhaps she might embarrassed him, 
but his embarrassment disappeared the moment their 
eyes met. He read in her face only confidence and 
sympathy. No vestige of dark suspicion clouded the 
lambent ray of those beautiful eyes. What cared he 


44 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


for the incubus of untoward public opinion if this 
woman believed in him? 

Norton had kept at work and the weeks had gone, 
and now only a few days remained before the trial. 
He had seen his lawyer again, but the interview was 
far from encouraging. The legal gentleman had found 
Susan Kiefer unable to furnish any clue. She did say 
that Mrs. Holstein was very reluctant to let her come, 
and questioned her closely as to her errand. Surely 
there did not seem much to build a defence upon. 

The evening after this interview with Mr. Flint, Dr. 
Norton started to go to a rheumatic patient, who lived 
on the outskirts of the town, but before he had reached 
the house he was met by a man, Avho told him that the 
lock-keeper’s wife was very sick, and they wanted him 
at once. The place was about a mile distant, and the 
best way to re.ich it was by the tow-path of the canal. 
Norton, who had struck into the rapid pace so natural 
to him, soon found he must walk more slowly to 
accommodate his companion’s style of locomotion. 
The night was quite dark, and he could see very little 
of the man’s face, but the sound of the voice and the 
outline of the shoulders both indicated a tremendous 
chest. But the fellow walked badly (not unlike a 
sweenied horse), and carried a huge stick to facilitate 
his progress. 

They had tramped on thus, until Norton thought 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


45 


they must be near the place, when the man said he 
must rest a minute. ” My cussed legs are getting 
worse every day,^’ and he sat down on the trunk of a 
fallen tree, and made room for Norton to sit beside 
him. Norton had scarcely taken his seat, when he 
felt himself seized from behind and jerked over back- 
wards. He tore his right arm loose from the cncirlino: 
clasp of his unseen assailant, and grasped him by the 
throat with a grip that soon would have finished him, 
had not the rascal who had been sitting beside him now 
struck him a blow on the head with his stick. 

When Norton recovered his consciousness his hands 
were tied, and one of the villains was saying, "Bill, I 
thought you had finished him, but he’s coming around 
again. It might just as well have been done here as 
anywhere else.” 

"Yes, a nice job we would have had, toting a dead 
man all the way to the river ! W e’ll make him w^alk, 
and fix him when we get him on the spot,” said the 
sweenied rascal. 

Norton knew that the end of the stick must have 
struck the ground, else the blow delivered by the 
broad-shouldered scoundrel would have killed him 
outright. He had been only stunned, and in a few 
minutes was able to walk. 

With one man on each side of him, they proceeded 
across the fields in the direction of the river. During 


46 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


their progress, the rascal who had first assailed Norton 
asked the other if he had got "the bottle filled.” "I 
am as dry as an ant-hill, and my neck feels as if it had 
been run over by a cart. This fellow has a grip like 
a bear-trap ! ” 

"No,” said the other, "I got no liquor. I met my 
man before I had a chance to go to the tavern, and I 
took him on the wing.” 

This talk about the bottle reminded Norton that he 
had a bottle. When he left his office he had put a 
bottle containing sulphuric acid in his pocket, intend- 
ing to replenish the cell of a galvanic battery which 
had been left at the house of the rheumatic patient 
before spoken of. 

By this time the party had reached the river, and 
one of the men loosing a boat from among some bushes, 
they were soon in it, and crossing the Susquehanna, a 
job quickly accomplished by such expert Avatermen as 
these evidently were. 

The night growing lighter as it advanced, Norton 
recognized the place Avhere they landed as the Counter- 
feiter’s Cave. An open space of half an acre of level 
ground, accessible only by water. Above and below, 
t\)r nearly half a mile, a high, perpendicular clift* came 
down into the very Avater. 

In that part of this three-sided stone enclosure most 
remote from the river, Avas a cave, above the mouth of 


JOHN NORTON M. D, 


47 


which the rocks frowned down more than a hundred 
feet. Twenty years before, the cave had been occupied 
by two counterfeiters, one of whom had been murdered 
by the other, and from this fact, doubtless, the place 
had gained its reputation of being haunted, and was 
almost never visited. 

Norton recognized it by the descriptions he had 
heard of it, and it struck him now as a weird, uncanny 
place, well-suited for the perpetration and concealment 
of a deed such as his companions evidently contem- 
plated. 

"You spoke,” said he, "of w^anting something to 
drink. I have a bottle in my pocket, and, if you will 
untie one of my hands, we wdll see what it is like.” 

"No,” said one of the men, "you can drink wxll 
enouo^h without that. Where is the bottle?” 

Having taken it from Norton’s pocket, the fellow 
placed it ill his hands, which were tied together in front 
of him. 

Fear that the contents of the bottle might be poison- 
ous kept the rascals from appropriating it before they 
had seen Norton drink of it. But they pressed up 
close to him to see that he did not draw too deeply of 
its contents, should it prove to be all right. After 
pushing the glass stopper out with his thumbs, Norton 
raised the bottle slowly toward his lips, but with a 
motion quick as a magicians he dashed its dreadful 


48 JOHN NORTON, M, D. 

contents into the eyes first of one and then of the other 
of these villains, and sprang aside just in time to escape 
a bullet from a navy revolver which one of them held 
in his hand. 

Crouching behind a bush, Norton commenced to 
untie with his teeth the cord that confined his hands, 
while each of the wretches lifted up an unearthly howl 
of agony. So blinded and confused were they that 
they were unable to even find the river until after 
much delay, and to their horror found small relief 
when the water had been reached by them. 

In crossing the spot upon which the three had been 
standing so recently, Norton saw, by the light of the 
moon, now well up and luminous, the pistol which the 
man in bis anguish had flung down. He took up the 
weapon, and went to find the men. They were both 
lying on the sand, like reversed alligators, each with 
his head in the river, heedless of each other, conscious 
only of pain and their dreadful sense of weakness. 
Two more entirely subdued and helpless wretches 
could hardly be imagined. 

Pity moved in Norton's breast, and the healing 
instinct got strong within him. But first he must 
know who had instigated these men, and why. He 
told them if they would tell him all about it he would 
do his best to save their eyes. He found that one of 
them had been hired by Bamsey, and the other was 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


49 


Barman’s hostler, and they were to have fifty dollars 
apiece and all the money they might find in Norton’s 
pockets, which they were told would be a considerable 
amount. 

^'Eamsey came yesterday to see Barman, and I 
heard him say he feared the Kiefer girl knew some- 
thing about their having been at Holstein’s the night 
before the death of the daughter. But if they could 
get you out of the way, every one would think you 
were guilty and had * skipped ’ to get rid of the peni- 
tentiary, and the whole business would come to an end 
without a trial.” 

'^Do either of you know — can you swear that 
Barman was at Mr. Holstein’s the night of July 
15th?” said Norton. 

"I can,” said the broad-shouldered man, ”Kamsey 
sent me with a buggy to bring him. We drove up 
the alley that runs back of Mr. Holstein’s lot, and I 
took him through the gate. Mrs. Holstein met us in 
the garden.” 

'’Come,” said Norton, and they were soon in the 
boat and recrossing the river. 

The walk back through the fields was tedious, as 
the men had to be led like children. Br. Norton 
remembered that as they came down through the fields 
he had noticed several great white heaps of lime, put 
there for fertilizing purposes. To one of these heaps 


50 


JOHN NORTON, M. JO, 


he led the suffering men, and sprinkled the dry, fine 
lime over the wounds, greatly to the relief of the 
almost frantic wretches. Having neutralized the fierce 
.acid by this efficient alkali, they continued their ♦ 
journey toward the town with much less pain. When 
they reached the office, Norton applied other remedies, 
and placing a buflalo robe on the floor, with carriage 
cushions for pillows, he made his guests quite com- 
fortable. 

He then washed the blood from the wound on his 
own head, and lying down on a lounge in the inner 
office, was soon fast asleep. 


CHAPTER YHI. 

In the morning Dr. Norton sent a dispatch request- 
ing his lawyer to come to W at once, and as soon 

as he had attended to the wounds of the men and 
ordered some food for them, he sent for the justice, 
and had their testimony taken down and warrants 
issued for Ramsey and Darman. 

He told the men, whose names he found to be 
Oyster and Shuck, that, as they were likely to be the 
greatest sufferers, he would make no charge against 
them, and would do his best to heal tljem. But if 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


51 


they wished to save even one of their eyes, they must 
al)stain from whiskey. Before night, Norton was in- 
fonned that Eamsey had fled, but that Dr. Darman 
had been arrested, and was sate in jail. 

Norton felt that Dr. Drake had something to do with 
these recent events, but of this there was not likely to 
be any proof. A nice thing indeed for him to be rid 
forever of a man so much in his way, and one he 
hated so intensely, and, at the same time, to see his 
old rival. Dr. Duncan, lose fifty thousand dollars, for 
he did not suppose the parson-fellow had any means. 

With much difficulty, Norton persuaded lawyer 
Flint to see Mrs. Holstein, and warn her against per- 
sisting in her false testimony — to give her the choice 
between tellino: the truth or beiu" indicted as an ac- 
complice of Eamsey and Darman in the death of 
Christina. 

Flint promised to do this, with very bad grace, say- 
ing such false kindness only multiplied crime. Mrs 
Holstein was a bad woman, in whom inordinate pride 
had displaced natural affection. 

'^But,” said Norton, "she must have suffered ter- 
ribly already ! ” 

" Not much. A nature so shallow and selfish as 
hers would be touched by an indictment particeps 
criminis more than by any consciousness of wrong- 
doing. I will do what you ask, however, for the sake 


52 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


of Mr. Holstein, who is an excellent old gentleman, 
though terribly henpecked. ” 

” What outrageous logic ! You almost convince 
me that the woman ought to be sent ofl\ just for the 
sake of this long-suifering spouse ! ” 

It is almost superfluous to add, that on the day of 
Norton’s trial, the prosecution broke down entirely. 
Colonel Wing had no chance to explode his rhetorical 
bomb-shell, and, seeing that he had no case, he wisely 
refused to make any examination of the witnesses, 
leaving the whole matter in the hands of the District 
Attorney. 

Norton’s lawyer said that he would not insult the 
intelligence of the jury by making an argument, in a 
case so clear as this one. The testimony given had 
vindicated the innocency of his client so clearly, that 
words were not needed. 

The judge, instead of charging the jury, congratu- 
lated the prisoner because his innocence had been so 
entirely proved, and his honor so clearly vindicated. 

The jury, without leaving the room, rendered the 
verdict of " Not Guilty.” 

But the trial of Dr. Darman, which took place soon 
after, had quite a different issue, — the verdict being 
twenty years in the Eastern Penitentiary. It came 
out in the course of the trial, that the rascal had been 
practising with only a bogus diploma, which, as the 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


53 


judge said in his charge, would be sufficient to send 
him to the penitentiary. Notwithstanding all that 
Norton could do for them, Oyster and Shuck each 
lost an eye. 

Oyster, the fellow who had seized him from behind, 
Norton kept as stable-man, perceiving that the one 
healthy instinct left in him, was admiration for a good 
horse, by which slender cord he hoped the man might 
be led to some nobler sentiment. 

Dr. Duncan took Shuck for his gardener. Norton 
thought that in the pure atmosphere of that well- 
ordered home, the man’s demoniacal besetments might 
in time relax their bold of him. 

Dr. Duncan remarked of him, after some observa- 
tion, that the fellow could sec more with one eye, than 
he had been able to with both. "By Jove! You 
were lucky to have that bottle of S. O^. in your 
pocket. It was devilish good eye-water for such 
wretches I Your galvanic machine did some good 
once, at all events ! ” 

The use of electricity was the one thing in Norton’s 
practice that did not commend itself to Duncan’s judg- 
ment. 

"Mere waste of time! Any other counter-irritant 
was just as good I ” 

And, when Norton hinted at the use of electricity 


54 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


in surgery, he called it " Infernal charlatanism — worse 
than the hot irons used before the time of Harvey.” 

One day, the Monday after he had presented the 
claim of Foreign Missions to his congregation, Aines- 
bury met Mr. Boyd, who handed him ten dollars for 
the cause. Fearing that his motive might be no higher 
than personal friendsiiip, Araesbury said, 

"How is this, Mr. Boyd? One would suppose 
that with your notions of future punishment, you 
would think the work of foreign missions a waste of 
time.” 

"No indeed, sir. I think it a grand work. For are 
not the finding and loving of Christ the best things 
that can happen to a man, and the sooner they happen 
the better? This life ought to stand for something, 
and I do not see how a man whose twenty or eighty 
years are spent without finding Christ, can ever catch 
up and be what he might have been. He has lost 
time. Shall we refuse a little money to give this start 
and prevent the waste of this life ? Who knows that 
the waste of this life can ever be made up through all 
eternity ? But excuse me for going on in this way, 
when you know about such things so much better than 
I do. I have had an oflTer to go as foreman in the car- 
shops at L , and, as I shall get five hundred dol- 

lars more per year, I think I shall go. I shall have 
more money for good causes like that of which we 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


55 


have been speaking. Then there is Deacon Horn- 
blende and a few others here in W , who will enjoy 

life so much better when I am gone. I expect they 
will sing that hymn which a certain rustic choir sang 
at a funeral by request of the widow, *Now we rejoicO 
to see the cuss removed.’ I shall not try to connect 
myself with any church as a member, but shall work 
just the same. You must come to see me when you 
are in L .” 

"No fear but that I shall do so,” said Amesbury, 
who felt that in the person of the man with whom he 
had just parted, he and the whole community had sus- 
tained a loss by the subtraction of a real, moral unit 
from the sum of their spiritual forces. 


CHAPTER IX. 

"Do you know, Mr. Amesbury, that Agnes Dun- 
can is the best worker in our church said Mary Ran- 
dolph, when her pastor had thanked her for some new 
impulse which she had given to the church work among 
the young. 

"I know Miss Duncan is a splendid woman, but I 
was not aware that she was particularly interested in 
religious work.” 


56 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


" You are as blind as a bat. Why, more young 
people respect religion and good morals because of her 
influence than because of any one person known to mo. 
They all quote her, and she has the most charming way 
of managing them.” 

"Such praise on the part of a man would cause me 
to think he was in love with Miss Duncan.” 

"I am in love with her. No one can know her as I 
know her and not love her.” 

" When did you hear from your father, Miss Ean- 
dolph?” 

"Yesterday, and he spoke of some trouble they 

were having with the miners in S . I wish ho 

would sell the mine and come home,” 

"It might be a wise thing to do, for the coal regions 
are in a very unsettled condition, and I fear the Mol lie 
Maguires are bound to make mischief there,” said 
Amesbury. 

It was only the next day after the above brief con- 
versation that Dr. Norton received a note from Mary 

Eandolph, asking him to go with her to S . Her 

father had been shot. They would start at once in a 
private conveyance. 

Norton was soon at Mr. Eandolph’s, where he found 
two powerful grays harnessed, ready for the journey, 
and in a few seconds more Mary Eandolph and himself 
were driving rapidly toward S . 


JOim NORTON, M. D, 


57 


To Norton the hours consumed in the journey 
seemed only minutes, so aglow with sympathy and 
tenderness was his heart made by mere proximity to 
this loved one. Fertile of resources, as he could be in 
an emergency ; self-possessed, as he always was when 
work had to be done, Norton was as timid as a girl in 
the presence of Mary Randolph, and constantly solici- 
tous lest in any way he should mar the joy of his 
friend Ames bury. 

Of course the conversation on the road was mainly 
about the wounded man. 

Mr. Randolph, it seems, had been doing all he could 

to break up the Mollie Maguire society in S , and 

had told the men that if they did not quit the organi- 
zation he would send and get English miners. 

Miss Randolph felt sure the shooting had been done 
by one of these Maguires. 

Dr. Norton found Mr. Randolph suffering from an 
Ugly wound in the neck. The ball, having struck the 
clavicle, had glanced and penetrated the neck, fortu- 
nately escaping the arteries and the cervical vertebra. 
It was but the work of a moment to locate the ball, 
after which no time was lost in extracting it. He could 
not say there was no danger, as Mr. Randolph was a 
man of sixty. A good constitution, reinforced by the 
might of a spai-tan will, were facts greatly in the 


58 


JOHN NORTON, 3L D. 


wounded man’s favor, and on these he would encour- 
age the loved one to build large hopes. 

There was another wound to be looked after when 
Mr. Randolph’s hurt had received due attention. Leo, 
the Newfoundland dog, who for years had been Mr. 
Randolph’s constant companion, was shot by the same 
pistol that came so near killing his master. 

There had been trouble at one of the breakers a 
mile from the village, and Mr. Randolph had gone to 
see what could be done with the men. On his way 
back, through the twilight, a man came out of a dense 
thicket of calmia that skirted the path and shot him. 

The old gentleman did not fall at once, and doubt- 
less would have been fired on again had not Leo 
bounded upon the man, who then had all he could do to 
keep the noble animal from seizing him by the throat, 
and only got loose after he had shot him. 

The superintendent hearing the shots, on hasten- 
ing to the spot found Mr. Randolph in the road, the 
dog crouched bleeding beside him, licking his uncon- 
scious face. 

Norton ministered to the brave dog as if he had been 
a brother man, and the noble fellow looked his thanks 
from his expressive brown eyes, refusing to stay any- 
where but in his master’s room. For the present Nor- 
ton determined to remain at S , going once or 

twice a week to W to see his sick folks. 


JOHN NOETON, M. D. 


59 


The grateful smile that shone upon him, when he 
had communicated this plan to Miss Randolph, made 
him superlatively happy for days. No matter if it 
should turn out that this woman did love his friend, 
and it was ordered of heaven that she should be Ames- 
bury’s wife, he would continue to love her with a 
devotion from which selfishness should be entirely 
eliminated. He should live to be of service to her, and 
Amesbury and himself should not love each other less, 
but all the more, on account of her. 

This was the kind of Platonia, ideal future by which 
Norton tried to fortify himself against the possibility 
of future heart insolvency. 

The fever caused b}^ the wound diminished gradually 
after a few days, and all the symptoms in the case of 
Mr. Randolph pointed toward recovery. 

From the first Norton had insisted that Miss Ran- 
dolph should leave the sick man to the care of others 
at least once every day, and seek the vitalizing influ- 
ence of the free unhoused air. 

At first he remained with Mr. Randolph on these 
occasions, and Mary went with the superintendent; 
but, when the patient had improved a little, Norton 
himself had the unspeakable pleasure of being her 
companion in her daily walks. 

It was in one of these perambulations that Norton 
spoke of Amesbury with so much aflection, that Miss 


60 


JOHN NORTON, M, D. 


Kandolph asked playfully, "Which is Damon and 
which is Pythias? I have heard you and Mr. Ames- 
hury speak as I supposed men never did speak of each 
other. But the survival of such virile love is one of 
the most beautiful things in society.” 

"Whether such a friendship as exists between Mr. 
Amesbury and myself can be reckoned a thing of 
beauty or not, it surely is a good thing. Is not the 
truly beautiful an outgrowth of the good? Indeed, 
are not the true, the beautiful and the good only differ- 
ent names for the same thing? just as earth, globe 
and world are different names for the planet upon 
which we stand ! But grand as this love between 
men is, it is not sufficient,” said Norton. " Before he 
is satisfied man craves two other loves — the love of 
woman and of God.” 

" Should not the greater include the less in this as 
ill other things ? ” 

" No ; the greater but makes the necessity of the 
less more apparent.” 

" But what Avould become of this virile love if two 
such masculine friends should happen to love the same 
woman ? ” 

Norton almost groaned aloud at this probing of his 
heart-wound. 

" If such affection was really virile and not simply 
puerile, and if the regard for the woman was really the 


JOHN NORTON, M, D, 


61 


celestial thing, love, why, then, because of the upward 
lift of such noble sentiment, the two should act 
toward each other not less, but more, as it behoves 
true friends always to act. Assuredly it would be 
thus if the third, the Godward affection, had begun to 
lift them. 'For love is not love which alters, when it 
alteration finds.’ The love of God does not alienate 
the hearts of human friends, and if what is called . 
* love-making ’ was not so interpenetrated by lower 
elements, its tendency, like divine love, would be to- 
ward whatever is true, beautiful or good. For these 
are of the household (the freumclioff) of love.” 

"You just spoke of making love. The word malxe 
has a harsh sound in that connection, and savors too 
much of mechanical operations. Love is an inspira- 
tion and a growth.” 

"Yes,” said Norton, "it is a new life, and from its 
natal hour has all eternity in which to grow.” 

" It seems stupid that your friend has not fallen in 
love with Miss Duncan ; indeed that all the gentlemen 
who know her have not found themselves in the same 
category, for a nobler and more beautiful woman is 
not to be found in all this country.” 

"What!” thought Norton, "is this glorious being 
really jealous, and is she taking (his way to quiz me 
about the heart status of my friend? I shall not be- 
lieve it.” 


62 


JOHN NORTON M, D, 


"You just now, and with the best of reasons, ob- 
jected to the word make in connection with love, and 
yet you speak of falling in love.” 

"Yes, but perhaps I used the word in its astronomi- 
cal sense, and meant the attraction of gravitation by 
which one heavenly body is drawn, or made to fall 
toward another.” 

" Yres hieni Perhaps the reason why my friend’s 
heart has not gravitated toward Miss Duncan is, that a 
celestial body of larger magnitude has been tugging 
at it.” 

"Do, then, gentlemen talk to each other so confi- 
dently of all such things?” said Mary Eandolph, with 
averted face. 

"No, but when one is stricken with a consuming 
malady, it is not necessary he should talk in order 
that a diagnosis of his case be made. The fact would 
become patent enough, were he as dumb as Zach- 
ariah.” 

But it is worthy of note that such cases become 
convalescent marvellously soon,” remarked the young 
lady. 

"Yes, and so they should, else were they doomed 
to quick destruction. To love and be unloved is 
to be only a hemisphere — a half world among the 
heavenly bodies. In nature there exists no such 


JOHN NORTON, M, D, 


63 


abortive phenomenon. All the forces above are work- 
ing toward the spheroidal.” 

Often thus, in these walks, did the inmost soul of 
Norton stand on the very verge of expression ; but 
his sense of honor — nay, his other love, kept from 
eruption the Vesuvius of afiection that swelled within 
him. 

This man, who could read in the hue of a cheek or 
the gleam of an eye what morbid processes were going 
on in the life-centre, could make nothing out of the 
crimson flushes and drooping eyelids of the beautiful 
woman that walked beside him. 

In Mary Randolph, Norton saw a Juno, but in him- 
self no Jupiter. To worship, therefore, was all that 
was left for him to do, and thus let whatever might be 
god-like within him grow. 


CHAPTER X. 

On one of his visits to W , as he drove up to 

his office, Norton saw his servant-man. Oyster, limping 
along toward him, the whole man so metamorphosed 
in external appearance as to be almost beyond recog- 
nition . 

In answer to his master’s question as to what had 


64 JOHN NORTON, M. D. 

happened to him, the fellow straightened himself up 
and said : 

am in the insurance business, and it pays if a 
person can look quite shaky, as though he might drop 
oft* at any time, for then everyone will want a policy 
on him. In four days I have got ten dollars from ten 
men, just to let them take out a thousand dollars 
apiece on me, and I will stick to it until I make 
another hundred, if I can stand it. It’s mighty hard 
work making believe I have the asthma and the 
palsy — but it pays, and when I get all the ten dol- 
lars I can I will astonish the policy-holders by getting 

well in a jifty. Insurance is all the go here in W . 

Some of the religious swells are in it as well as the 
rest.” 

Vexed as Norton was at the wretched duplicity of 
the fellow, he could not refrain from mirth. He felt 
that any moral reason why such a thing should not be 
done would be wasted on the man in his present soul- 
status. 

”But don’t they have an examining doctor?” 

”Yes, there was an old fellow they called Dr. 
Somebody, but he wanted his fee and did not object 
much, so they clapped on the policies and forked over 
the ten dollars. There will be as many policies on 
me in another week as there are scales on a shad.” 

"But don’t you know you run a terrible risk by 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


(\5 

making it to the advantage of such men to have you 
dead? Take my advice and quit this business, and 
look out for yourself or they will have you put out of 
the way.” 

By jingo ! I had not thought of that I Do you sup- 
pose they would kill a fellow ? ” 

” Such things have been done,” said Norton with a 
grave face. 

Amesbury returned with Norton to S . He re- 

marked — by way of excuse for not having gone before 
(a fact which had struck Norton as somewhat 
strange) , that he had hardly been himself for three or 
four weeks. 

" A fair gamester,” said he, '' with one fling has 
knocked down everyone of the ten-pins in my heart’s 
alley. It turns out that after all these months of 
bowling, I have succeeded only in hitting the one in 
the lady’s heart marked 'friendship.’ But, it was all 
fair play, and it only remains for a fellow to find out if 
it really is ' Better to have loved and lost, than never 
to have loved at all.’” 

Norton, whose soul loathed cant of all kinds, ven- 
tured no word of consolation to his disappointed friend, 
but immediately began to speak of other things. 

” You folks in W — seem to have gone mad over this 
speculative life insurance. Plow is it that our legisla- 
ture permits such infernal business to havethe sanction 


66 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


of legality? These buzzard societies are a disgrace to 
the whole Commonwealth I ” 

Yes, the other day 1 helped to bury a poor old fel- 
low who, they said, was killed by the cars, and upon 
whom were policies for several thousand dollars, held 
by parties of doubtful reputation. I made all the in- 
quiry I could, but found out nothing.” 

Mr. Eandolph was glad to see his minister, and 
when Mary said she had begun to fear that her pastor 
had forgotten them in their trouble, Amesbury said 
(unheard by Norton), that he had been trying to pull 
himself together and let his heart-wound granulate a 
little. 

" Why did you not go to Miss Duncan ? The touch 
of my friend’s hand would have removed every vestige 
of the scar before this time.” 

” You cold-blooded enchantress ! Do you suppose 
a man’s heart is like the negative plate of a pho- 
tographer — if the impression don’t suit, it can be 
washed off and used for another?” 

” No, the love-machine is not a camera obscura, but 
a camera revealer, and, unless two good impressions 
are made, there should be no delivery of goods.” 

” Why should not two well-disposed persons begin 
the matrimonial life, trusting that love will follow?” 
asked Amesbury. 

But what if it should never put in an appearance ? ” 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


67 


’'That, certainly, would be awkward — nay, it 
would be horrible. Dr. Norton tells me your father 
will be in a condition to ])e taken home next week, if 
he improves as he has reason to hope he will. Be as- 
sured your friends will be glad to see you. The poor 
and sick ask very longingly when you will be back. 
Miss Duncan has been very kind to them, but some of 
them think her cold and proud.” 

"Simple creatures I' Miss Duncan's nature is too 
royal for their comprehension. She is a born queen 

— I am a born nurse. ^Sick people may like the nurse 

— all the healthyones worship the queen.” 

" I coijtess'*hiystdf on the sick list and terribly in 
need oj qpmrse,” sai^ Amesbury. 

" Yblir malady^isjmaginary and needs but the touch 
of the royal sceptre to dissipate it.” 

" I ^on’t believe m dissipation. Here is Leo. Dr. 
Norton has been telling me about him. What a noble 
fellow he is ! Plow his brown eyes overflow with kind- 
ness ! ” 

" Yes, but they become very phosphorescent when 
he is angry,” said Norton, who had just come in. 

"To me, the wonderful intelligence and affection of 
the dog and horse, furnish one of the strongest argu- 
ments against the doctrine of evolution,” remarked 
Amesbury. " Here are animals most like man men- 
tally, but most unlike him bodily. The anthropoid 


68 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


apes and the other animals that bear most resemblance 
to man in physical make, resemble him the least, in- 
tellectually. How is such a fact accounted for in the 
theory of evolution as it is held by its most radical ex- 
ponents ? ” 

"Perhaps,” said the Doctor, "if these apes and the 
gorilla had been with man as long as the dog and horse, 
they might be to-day in advance of these in mental 
qualities.” 

"I cannot think that the superiority of the dog to 
the monkey is the result of domestication. The ants 
have never been domesticated, and yet, perhaps, they 
excel all the brute creation in intelligence. Mr. Dar- 
win, himself, says that by many authors and in many 
respects, ants are regarded as the prototype of man. 
Houzeau places the ant nearest to man in regard to 
social condition. Belt, a most radical evolutionist, in 
speaking of the foraging ants of Nicaragua says, ’Per- 
haps if we could learn their wonderful language, we 
should find even in their mental condition they rank 
next to humanity.’ When we remember that these are 
precisely the most insignificant of creatures, and that 
they are bodily as far below man as it is possible to 
get, it makes one pause before accepting the theory of 
evolution in its totality. With such facts before us, it 
is not quite the spirit of true science to take so much 
for granted.” 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


6 ^ 


"True science takes nothing for granted,” said Nor- 
ton. " Scio means to know. Evolution is as yet only 
a grand suggestive guess, but one for which every man 
of brains is sincerely thankful.” 

"Yes, for such guess, such imaginative outreach, is 
as useful in unfolding the facts of nature as it is in 
constructing tlie ideal creations of the poet.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

On their way back to W , at the inn where Nor- 

ton always had his horses watered, the two friends 
were accosted by a person with a peddler-like air of 
business and a decidedly Dutch accent, who, having 
fished up a great bundle of papers from the bowels of 
a capacious satchel, said he was the travelliiig agent for 
the Mount Zion Mutual Life Insurance Company, of 
Stickler Grove. 

" The company is as sound as a nut, and has never 
hesitated to pay every loss. It is as sure as death, 
gentlemen, and I have some first-class policies which 
I should like to sell to you. Here is one of a 
thousand dollars on an old lady living in Nip- 
town. She is seventy-five years old, quite deaf, 
and had the numoney last winter. She has her 


70 


NORTON, M. D. 


home with a son-in-law, who also has a policy of 
two thousand dollars on her. It’s a fine chance to make 
a nice sum in a few months. Here is another policy, 
all signed and stamped, for a thousand dollars, on a 

man in W by the name of Oyster. He has lost 

one eye, has got the asthma, and is as bad a case of 
palsy as you ever saw, — and more than all that, he 
gets drunk whenever he can get the rum. The man 
that gets that policy will be lucky.” 

How long the fellow would have gone on in praise of 
his merchandise it is impossible to say, had not Dr. 
Norton cut him short by vehemently wishing '' the devil 
had his policies and all the rascals connected with the 
infernal business.” 

” This is as bad as Tetzel and his indulgences,” said 
Amesbury. ” They ought to be called societies for the 
suppression of old folks. I understand one is being 
formed to include babes. 0 temporal O mores I 

Norton found that no further insurance had been 
placed upon his man Oyster during his absence. The 
fellow had evidently been frightened by the grim light 
in which the matter had been placed. For ever since 
the night at the Counterfeiter’s Cave the creature had 
the utmost conlidence in whatever Dr. Norton said or 
did, and there had sprouted from the moral ash-heap of 
his spiritual being a feeble twig of atfection for his 
master. The sentiment was not to be compared to the 


JOHI^ NORTON, M. D. 


71 


large, noble, unselfish love that dwelt in the mind of 
the dog Leo for his master, but to despise this day of 
small things were indeed unwise and cruel. 

Norton determined to water the sickly little plant by 
the dew-drops of kindness. The experiment was 
worth while as a psychological study, even if it failed 
of any higher eventiiation. 

Norton called at Dr. Duncan’s to thank that gentle- 
man for uttendins: some of his sick folks durins: his 
absence, and found Amesbury in the parlor practising 
a piece of sacred music with Miss Agnes, which they 
intended to sing the next Sunday afternoon at a Sab- 
bath School concert. The singers had superb voices 
and good expression, but above all they had clean, 
worshipful hearts, and hardly ever before had Norton 
been so much impressed with the power in music to 
beget devotion as while listening this morning. 

The greeting of the genial old doctor was ore 
rotundo. He always used a volume of sound such as 
an Alpine traveller might employ in an attempt to com- 
municate with a companion on another peak of the 
mountain ; but there was nothing harsh in the good 
doctor’s voice any more than there was in his large 
heart. The whole man was simply huge. 

"Mr. Amesbiiiy tells mo that my friend Randolph is 

getting on well, and expects to be back to W in a 

few days. I’m right glad the rascal’s bullet did not 


72 


JOHN’ NORTON, M. D. 


cut his wind. It will not be safe for him there any 
longer. Why don’t he sell out? He has money 
enough, but I suppose digging coal is like making pills ; 
men don’t stick to it so much for the money as because 
they can not endure being idle. Come over to the 
office, and let these warblers shriek to their hearts ’ 
content. That girl has always had the musical craze. 
At one time I had all I could do to keep her from fall- 
ing in love with her music teacher.” 

”More likely the teacher fell in love with her,” said 
Amesbury. 

” Yes, and as soon as I saw the morbid symptoms 
I prescribed change of air. I tried to get a good dose 
of jalap into the fellow, but did not succeed.” 

This was said while they were moving toward the 
other part of the house, and from still greater distance 
he roared to Agnes, "The gentlemen will stay for din- 
ner ! ” 

Before the two had finished their discussion about 
the diphtheretic tendencies of scarlet fever, dinner Was 
announced. 

When some one noticed the fine quality of the celery, 
Dr. Duncan said that among the other good results of 
Norton’s nocturnal adventure, was the finding for him 
of an excellent gardener, — " if Agnes here don’t get 
him started out as a temperance lecturer.” 


JOHN NORTON, M. 1). 


73 


''Has he really quit drinking?” inquired Norton; 
" if so, he has done better than my poor fellow.” 

"Yes, Dr. Norton,” said Agnes, "he has not tasted 
whiskey for nine months, and he is so much improved 
you would hardly recognize him.” 

"Have they insured him yet?” inquired Ames- 
bury. 

"Insured!” roared Dr. Duncan; "the man who 
would come here on that business would need to he 
insured. But that reminds me : Dr. Drake has that 
poor, half-witted fellow, who takes care of his horses, 
insured for five thousand dollars. I’d sooner take my 
chance as color-bearer in the most bloody battle ever 
fought on earth than to be in the poor wretch’s shoes. 
And Elder Hornblende has taken out a policy of two 
thousand dollars on his old aunt, Mrs. Weeks. .Why 
don’t you preach against this thing, Mr. Amesbury ?” 

" It must be done,” said Amesbury. "Of course, I 
can say nothing to benefit Hornblende ; he will think 
it a lex talionis movement, — an attempt to get square 
in the Boyd matter.” 

"No difference what such a thin-souled creature 
thinks I It is the duty of every minister in Pennsyl- 
vania to show the evil tendencies of this horrid busi- 
ness.” 

Because of some office work, Norton was forced to 
excuse himself immediately after dinner, and it was 


74 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


well for poor Oyster that he did so, as he found that 
individual suffering intensely. In answer to his ques- 
tions, the Doctor found that the fellow had discovered 
a bottle of whiskey in the oats box at the stable, and 
had imbibed freely. 

"How did it get there?” inquired his master. 

" I don’t know, — it smelt like good stuff, and I took 
a hig horn.” 

" Plave you the bottle ? ” 

" Yes,” — and the fellow reached behind the lounge, 
upon which he was lying, and brought up a flask. 

Norton put some of the whiskey in a glass, and 
poured into it a few drops of an aqueous solution of 
sulphuretted hydrogen, which he happened to have on 
hand; and when he saw the bright, lemon-colored 
precipitate, he knew that the whiskey had been drugged 
with arsenic. Ho took down a stomach-pump and 
went over to the man, whose groans were becoming 
incessant, and said, "This all comes of your insur- 
ance; the whiskey is full of poison, and may kill you 
in spite of all I can do, — here, I must use this.” 

After this operation the sick man was made to swal- 
low a spoonful of hydrated susqui-oxide of iron, which 
dose was repeated frequently until Norton felt that 
recovery was probable. As soon as he had sufficiently 
recovered to talk freely. Oyster swore on the Bible, 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


75 


M’hich be asked Norton to bring, that be would never 
toucb whiskey again. 

" You bad best keep that vow,” said Norton, hoping 
that the shattered forces of his will might, under the 
leadership of self-love, be marshalled into an attitude 
of successful resistance. "The men, whose interest it 
is to have you die, know that you like rum, and through 
this failing they will try to kill you.” 

And let it be said, by way of encouragement to the 
worst inebriate, that even this much-enslaved Oyster 
was able to keep his vow. 

Of course, it is impossible to say how much the un- 
impaired integrity of his masters will had to do with 
this victory, for, after this new proof of Norton's power 
over evil forces, Oyster never seemed quite safe unless 
he was within easy reach of his master; and, annoying 
as it sometimes was, Norton humored the wish, per- 
ceiving in it the outreacliing of a feeble soul for human 
help, — nay, let us say Divine help. For is not this 
one of God’s ways of helping the weak, even through 
the might of his strong ones ? The one hope of thous- 
ands in their unequal life-battle, is that some healthy 
soul shall draw near in that mysterious, psychological 
proximity, bringing heaven-sent reinforcement. 

My friends ! Y(ju who think that money is every- 
thing, and imagine that by your gifts to this or that 
benevolent scheme you are giving marvellous momen- 


76 


JOHN NORTON, M. D, 


turn to every good thing on earth, and have come to. 
believe that you and your dollars are indispensable to 
Jehovah, do not yon see that God’s great need, and 
that which circumscribes him most, is the want of 
healthy human souls to act as moral life-preservers to 
shipwrecked humanity? Your gold is of small help 
to weak swimmers. A friendly arm whose moral po- 
tency has not been withered through greed or lust, 
this, verily, is onr world’s prime necessity. Such an 
arm the man Oyster found, and what wonder that he 
clung to it tenaciously ! 


CHAPTER XII. 

Ox his retui-n lo S , Dr. Xorton found Mr. 

Randolph still improving, and there was nothing to 
prevent his removal on the morrqw. In Norton’s ab- 
sence, a New York capitalist had purchased the mine, 
and to the great joy of Mary Randolph, her father 
would not have to come again to S . 

Norton and Mary Randolph would take one more 
walk together in the bracing mountain air. It was the 
last of October. The foliage had received the finish- 
ing touch of Nature’s brush, and was gorgeous indeed ! 
The landscape was visible through the indescribable, 


JOUN NORTON, M. D, 


77 


amethystic haze of Indian summer, nowhere seen more 
perfectly than among the Alleghenies. 

"Since your father’s recovery has been assured, 

these days here in S , have been halcyon days to 

me,” said Xorton. "I almost regret that they are at 
an end.” 

" I feared the very reverse of that might be true, of 
one so entirely engrossed in his profession as Dr. 
Norton, and I have been almost expecting to see ennui, 
impatience, or some of the many manifestations which 
you lords of creation make, when bored beyond 
endurance.” 

"Am I, then, such a mere animal in your estima- 
tion? Have you not seen that there is no work so 
pleasant as being of service to you ? No place so dear 
as where you are? No companionship so delightful to 
me as yours? Oh, Mary! tell me that this service 
and this companionship may be continued forever, and 
the round globe holds not a gladder heart than mine ! ” 

" That were a small favor to grant to one who has 
become so dear to me as you have, John.” 

"Oh, thou heavenly one I The heights of Olympus 
seem tame when compared w'ith the altitude to which 
your love raises me.” 

" God grant that from this, our mount of transfigur- 
ation, we may not, as some have, descend into the dark 


78 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


valle}^ of evcryda}^ life, never again to behold even an 
Indian summer of true love.” 

" Do’st thou apprehend any such winter of discon- 
tent, dear Mary ? ” 

"No, John, love casts out fear ! ” 

Why attempt to go further with our friends? H ive 
they not commenced life’s journey auspiciously? 
When from mountain tops and adjacent fields you have 
looked here and there upon two noble rivers, their 
crystal waves sparkling as they move onward through 
green banks, to the place where, they are to unite, you 
know without having gone further than the point of 
their debouchure, that a deeper, broader and more 
majestic river must emerge and flow on beyond. So 
when two such deep, dear life-streams as John Nor- 
ton’s and Mary Handolph’s have ])cen joined, beyond 
the point of confluence there wdll be a mighty aug- 
mentation of depth and beauty. It would, indeed, be 
delightful at this juncture to re-launch our little 
biographical bark,' and, as we sail down, to mark the 
increments which this life-river receives by the flowing 
in, ever and anon, of the babbling brooklets of human- 
ity, and see all the desert places that are made green 
and beautiful by tha onward flow of these blended life- 
rivers ; but, with no better helm than a sputtering pen, 
it were the part of wisdom not to venture further. 
And for much the same reason, the writer refrains from 


JOHN NORTON, M. D. 


79 


spaaking further of the friend, Amesbury, who, unlike 
the canine of manger notoriety, embraced Norton when 
he was told by him that Mary Randolph had crowned 
his life with her love. 

How much this magnanimous joy of friend Ames- 
bury was due to the charms of Agnes Duncan, now 
daily unfolding before the clerical vision, it is quite 
impossible to say. Nor is it possible to describe how 
the thread-like pulse in the soul of poor Oyster, be- 
came fuller by transfusioivfrom the moral life of his 
master. Or, how the almost still-born soul of the 
gardener, Shuck, was nourished into self-mastery by his 
godmother, Mrs. Amesbury, better known to the 
reader as Agnes Duncan. Of the other persons men- 
tioned in these pages, together with the readers, let 
this one wish be written, 


Pax vobiscum, 



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6. Voice of a Shell. O, C. Auringer. Lyrical 

stories and songs of the Sea 30 l. 

5. Rosamond Howard. Kate R. Lovelace. 

Story of a girl’s struggles to fame 20 a 

4. Appeal to Moody. Lyrical satire on Brook- 
lyn politicians and New York editors 10 :. 

3. Bonny Eagle. Sprightly sketch of a Vaca- 
tion camp in New England hills 20:. 

2. Prisons Without Walls. Kelsic Etheridge. 

“A strange, weird and marrowy story. ”.26 i, 
1. Irene. Mrs. B. F. Baer. A prize story, favor- 
ably compared to Hawthorne’s romance8.25 1 . 




Bright and sprightly —Chicago Inter- Ocean. 

They deserve v/ell of the reading public. — Illustrated Christian Weekly. 

Cheap, convenient, and by popular auihors. — E pis. Methodist, Baltimore. 

Bl ight and breezy, and above all, pure in sentiment. — Boston Transcript. 

Breezy, bright little lioiks, always unexceptionaly pure in sentiment.— Cincinnati Commercial. 
Remarkably clever little books; just the thing for the country, watering places, hotel verandas, < i 
under the shade of sighing trees.— A', Y. Express. 

. The brightest and iiest brief works by American authors who are well known to the reading publi 
They have proved very iiopular, particularly as traveling companions. — Boston Home Journal. 


HE^For sale by all Booksellers, and sent by mail post paid on receipt of price. 

W. B. SMITH & CO., Publishers, 27 Bond St., New^orh^ 


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